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Hope you kept the Dramamine handy while watching the 74th Masters leader board this week. It’s been a roller coaster ride, chronicling the up-and-down adventures of enough archival favorites to rate its own miniseries. Starting today’s final round, five men with ten Green Jackets between them were within 10 strokes of the lead, one of them 50 years old and another 60. But even older and holding up just as well, are the boards proclaiming the leaders’ movements. Or as they say here, “the scoreboards.” Hand-operated by volunteers (one alumnus being local hero and 1987 champ, Larry Mize), these wooden signs rival only Magnolia Lane and the Hogan Bridge in terms of iconic Masters signature visuals. Along with gallery roping, pairing sheets and course maps, the scoreboard was an innovation of Augusta National co-founder, Clifford Roberts, in his quest to make the Masters as patron-friendly as possible. He even developed the scoring method we now know as the red and black numbers, over and under par. In other words, the man revolutionized math. Just the natural outcome of a Wall Street financier turning to golf. The scoreboards indeed make for classic TV cutaways, but their primary purpose is to inform the assembled. And when they’re recording crucial score changes, you can hear the thrilled response, holes away. 11 major scoreboards sprinkle the course, so you can imagine the excited and shocked roars and groans yesterday, when the eagles were landing, and the double bogeys were crashing. Operators wait for a break in the action nearby before posting updates, and the crowds anticipate the additions. So when someone leaps five strokes in three holes, the exhilaration sweeps through the course like an ocean wave of effervescence. There’s something comforting about watching the Tournament’s progress the same way vintage-comebacks and meltdowns were registered. Late Sunday, looking up at those classic boards, seeing their dwindling numbers pile up, or down, you’ll swear you can almost smell Horton Smith’s cigar.

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